Physics:Synchrotron

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A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator, descended from the cyclotron, in which the accelerating particle beam travels around a fixed closed-loop path. The strength of the magnetic field which bends the particle beam into its closed path increases with time during the accelerating process, being synchronized to the increasing kinetic energy of the particles.[1]

The synchrotron is one of the first accelerator concepts to enable the construction of large-scale facilities, since bending, beam focusing and acceleration can be separated into different components. The most powerful modern particle accelerators use versions of the synchrotron design. The largest synchrotron-type accelerator, also the largest particle accelerator in the world, is the 27-kilometre-circumference (17 mi) Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland, completed in 2008 by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).[2] It can accelerate beams of protons to an energy of 7 teraelectronvolts (TeV or 1012 eV).

Types

Large synchrotrons usually have a linear accelerator (linac) to give the particles an initial acceleration, and a lower energy synchrotron which is sometimes called a booster to increase the energy of the particles before they are injected into the high energy synchrotron ring. Several specialized types of synchrotron machines are used today:

  • A collider is a type in which, instead of the particles striking a stationary target, particles traveling in two countercirculating rings collide head-on, making higher-energy collisions possible.[3][4]
  • A storage ring is a special type of synchrotron in which the kinetic energy of the particles is kept constant.[5]
  • A synchrotron light source is a combination of different electron accelerator types, including a storage ring in which the desired electromagnetic radiation is generated. This radiation is then used in experimental stations located on different beamlines. Synchrotron light sources in their entirety are sometimes called "synchrotrons", although this is technically incorrect.

Principle of operation

The synchrotron evolved from the cyclotron, the first cyclic particle accelerator. While a classical cyclotron uses both a constant guiding magnetic field and a constant-frequency electromagnetic field (and is working in classical approximation), its successor, the isochronous cyclotron, works by local variations of the guiding magnetic field, adapting to the increasing relativistic mass of particles during acceleration.[6]

A drawing of the Cosmotron

While the first synchrotrons and storage rings like the Cosmotron and ADA strictly used the toroid shape, the strong focusing principle independently discovered by Ernest Courant et al.[7][8] and Nicholas Christofilos[9] allowed the complete separation of the accelerator into components with specialized functions along the particle path, shaping the path into a round-cornered polygon. Some important components are given by radio frequency cavities for direct acceleration, dipole magnets (bending magnets) for deflection of particles (to close the path), and quadrupole / sextupole magnets for beam focusing.[10]

The interior of the Australian Synchrotron facility, a synchrotron light source. Dominating the image is the storage ring, showing a beamline at front right. The storage ring's interior includes a synchrotron and a linac.


Injection procedure

History and development

See also: Physics:List of accelerators in particle physics

The synchrotron principle was proposed by Vladimir Veksler in 1944.[11] Edwin McMillan constructed the first electron synchrotron in 1945, arriving at the idea independently, having missed Veksler's publication (which was only available in a Soviet journal, although in English).[12][13][14]

The Birmingham proton synchrotron under construction

The first proton synchrotron was designed by Sir Marcus Oliphant[13][15] and constructed at the University of Birmingham in 1952.[13] In 1963, McMillan and Veksler were jointly awarded the Atoms for Peace Prize for the invention of the synchrotron.[13]


Another early large synchrotron is the Cosmotron built at Brookhaven National Laboratory which reached 3.3 GeV in 1953.[16]

Among the few synchrotrons around the world, 16 are located in the United States. Many of them belong to national laboratories; few are located in universities.[17]

As part of colliders

Until August 2008, the highest energy collider in the world was the Tevatron, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, in the United States. It accelerated protons and antiprotons to slightly less than 1 TeV of kinetic energy and collided them together. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which has been built at the European Laboratory for High Energy Physics (CERN), has roughly seven times this energy (so proton-proton collisions occur at roughly 14 TeV). It is housed in the 27.6 km tunnel which formerly housed the Large Electron Positron (LEP) collider.[18] The LHC will also accelerate heavy ions (such as lead) up to an energy of 1.15 PeV. As of 2025, it is considered the largest and most powerful particle colldier.[19] The largest device of this type seriously proposed was the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), which was to be built in the United States. This design, like others, used superconducting magnets which allow more intense magnetic fields to be created without the limitations of core saturation. While construction was begun, the project was cancelled in 1994, citing excessive budget overruns — this was due to naïve cost estimation and economic management issues rather than any basic engineering flaws. It can also be argued that the end of the Cold War resulted in a change of scientific funding priorities that contributed to its ultimate cancellation. However, the tunnel built for its placement still remains, although empty.

As part of synchrotron light sources

See also: Physics:List of synchrotron radiation facilities

Synchrotron radiation has a wide range of applications (see synchrotron light) and many second and third generation synchrotrons have been built especially to harness it. The largest of those 3rd generation synchrotron light sources are the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France, the Advanced Photon Source (APS) in Lemont, United States, and SPring-8 in Hyōgo, Japan, accelerating electrons up to 6, 7 and 8 GeV, respectively.[20][21][22]


Applications

Hitachi synchrotron used for heavy ion particle therapy

See also

References

  1. ↑ Chao, A. W.; Mess, K. H.; Tigner, M. et al., eds (2013). Handbook of Accelerator Physics and Engineering (2nd ed.). World Scientific. doi:10.1142/8543. ISBN 978-981-4417-17-4. https://cds.cern.ch/record/384825. 
  2. ↑ "The Large Hadron Collider" (in en). 2023-12-15. https://home.web.cern.ch/science/accelerators/large-hadron-collider. 
  3. ↑ "The LHC as a photon collider | CMS Experiment". https://cms.cern/news/lhc-photon-collider. 
  4. ↑ "The Large Hadron Collider" (in en). 2024-12-04. https://home.cern/science/accelerators/large-hadron-collider. 
  5. ↑ "Storage Rings | Accelerator Directorate". https://accelerators.slac.stanford.edu/research/storage-rings. 
  6. ↑ McMillan, Edwin M. (February 1984). "A history of the synchrotron" (in en). Physics Today 37 (2): 31–37. doi:10.1063/1.2916080. ISSN 0031-9228. http://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.2916080. 
  7. ↑ Courant, E. D.; Livingston, M. S.; Snyder, H. S. (1952). "The Strong-Focusing Synchrotron—A New High Energy Accelerator". Physical Review 88 (5): 1190–1196. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.88.1190. Bibcode: 1952PhRv...88.1190C. 
  8. ↑ Blewett, J. P. (1952). "Radial Focusing in the Linear Accelerator". Physical Review 88 (5): 1197–1199. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.88.1197. Bibcode: 1952PhRv...88.1197B. 
  9. ↑ US patent 2736799, Nicholas Christofilos, "Focussing System for Ions and Electrons", issued 1956-02-28 
  10. ↑ Muto, M.; Niki, K.; Mori, Y. (May 1997). "Magnets and their power supplies of JHF 50-GeV synchrotron". Proceedings of the 1997 Particle Accelerator Conference (Cat. No.97CH36167). 3. pp. 3306–3308 vol.3. doi:10.1109/PAC.1997.753190. ISBN 0-7803-4376-X. 
  11. ↑ Veksler, V. I. (1944). "A new method of accelerating relativistic particles". Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences de l'URSS 43 (8): 346–348. http://lhe.jinr.ru/rus/veksler/wv0/publikacii/1944Veksler.pdf. 
  12. ↑ J. David Jackson and W.K.H. Panofsky (1996). "EDWIN MATTISON MCMILLAN: A Biographical Memoir". National Academy of Sciences. http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/mcmillan-edwin.pdf. 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Wilson, E. J. N. (1996). "Fifty Years of Synchrotrons". CERN. http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/accelconf/e96/PAPERS/ORALS/FRX04A.PDF. 
  14. ↑ Zinovyeva, Larisa (10 June 2011). "On the question about the autophasing discovery authorship". Лариса Зиновьева. http://www.larisa-zinovyeva.com/%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%BE-%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BA%D1%80%D1%8B%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%8F-%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%84%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B8/. 
  15. ↑ Rotblat, Joseph (2000). "Obituary: Mark Oliphant (1901–2000)". Nature 407 (6803): 468. doi:10.1038/35035202. PMID 11028988. 
  16. ↑ "The Cosmotron". Brookhaven National Laboratory. http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/history/cosmotron.asp. 
  17. ↑ "Synchrotron - All Items". https://nucleus.iaea.org/sites/accelerators/lists/synchrotron/allitems.aspx. 
  18. ↑ Brüning, O.; Burkhardt, H.; Myers, S. (July 2012). "The large hadron collider" (in en). Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics 67 (3): 705–734. doi:10.1016/j.ppnp.2012.03.001. Bibcode: 2012PrPNP..67..705B. https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0146641012000695. 
  19. ↑ Castelvecchi, Davide (2025-03-19). "The biggest machine in science: inside the fight to build the next giant particle collider" (in en). Nature 639 (8055): 560–563. doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00793-x. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 40108320. Bibcode: 2025Natur.639..560C. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00793-x. 
  20. ↑ Bruno, Patrick; Biasci, Jean-Claude; Detlefs, Carsten et al. (2024-10-24). "X-ray science using the ESRF—extremely brilliant source" (in en). The European Physical Journal Plus 139 (10): 928. doi:10.1140/epjp/s13360-024-05719-6. ISSN 2190-5444. Bibcode: 2024EPJP..139..928B. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-024-05719-6. 
  21. ↑ Galayda, J.N. (1995). "The Advanced Photon Source". Proceedings Particle Accelerator Conference. 1. pp. 4–8. doi:10.1109/PAC.1995.504556. ISBN 0-7803-2934-1. 
  22. ↑ Kamitsubo, H. (1998-05-01). "SPring-8 Program". Journal of Synchrotron Radiation 5 (3): 162–167. doi:10.1107/S0909049597018517. ISSN 0909-0495. PMID 15263472. Bibcode: 1998JSynR...5..162K. https://journals.iucr.org/paper?S0909049597018517. 



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